And, indeed, if one was to observe with what
fury the sea comes on sometimes against the shore here, especially
at the Lizard Point, where there are but few, if any, out-works, as
I call them, to resist it; how high the waves come rolling forward,
storming on the neck of one another (particularly when the wind
blows off sea), one would wonder that even the strongest rocks
themselves should be able to resist and repel them. But, as I
said, the country seems to be, as it were, one great body of stone,
and prepared so on purpose.
And yet, as if all this was not enough, Nature has provided another
strong fence, and that is, that these vast rocks are, as it were,
cemented together by the solid and weighty ore of tin and copper,
especially the last, which is plentifully found upon the very
outmost edge of the land, and with which the stones may be said to
be soldered together, lest the force of the sea should separate and
disjoint them, and so break in upon these fortifications of the
island to destroy its chief security.
This is certain--that there is a more than ordinary quantity of
tin, copper, and lead also placed by the Great Director of Nature
in these very remote angles (and, as I have said above, the ore is
found upon the very surface of the rocks a good way into the sea);
and that it does not only lie, as it were, upon or between the
stones among the earth (which in that case might be washed from it
by the sea), but that it is even blended or mixed in with the
stones themselves, that the stones must be split into pieces to
come at it.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137